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High maintenance relationships
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I am completely invisible to her…..
28 Jul 2010 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
“My husband’s sister treats me like I am completely invisible. When I have requested that we talk about it, my request is refused. My sister-in-law affirmation is not important to me. However what is important is that my husband does not speak up. This concerns and hurts me greatly. We have been married for 19 years. Only in the two years, since my sister-in-law got divorced, has my husband had much to do with her.”
Your husband is a wise man if he is opting to keep out of relationship problems that do not involve him. As an adult woman you do not need anyone, not even your husband, to run interference for you. I do not know how you will get the recognition you want, but do not need, from your sister-in-law. Efforts will fail if he tries to clear a path for you to his sister.
Live fully anyway
Live a full life anyway, despite your invisibility to her. The passive party in any relationship is the one who is in control (leading or determining the outcome) of the relationship.
I think it is your husband’s attention you crave. Address this with him without begging. Get his attention and, for good or for ill, his sister will surely begin to notice you.
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He tells me I want to talk too much about everything…..
25 Jul 2010 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
“My fiancé tells me I want to talk about everything too much. I have been the ‘therapist’ among my friends since first grade. He hates it when I want to talk through an issue. We were having a debate and I cut him off. He became very angry and told me it was horribly rude and disrespectful to interrupt him. Not even five minutes later, after listening to what he had to say and asking if he was finished, I began to explain my side. Mid-sentence he interrupted me. I stared at him in disbelief before losing my temper and blowing up. I am a firm believer in equality. When I tell him he is being a hypocrite, he blows up and tells me that we don’t need to talk about every little issue. Everyone calls him immature but I wanted to see what an impartial outsider had to say.” (Edited)
Constant in-depth conversations can be exhausting, enough to make some resist all conversation. Discard the therapist label – especially with your fiancé. The very suggestion that you’d be his therapist will be very inappropriate. Besides this, good therapeutic process often allows for silent, purposeful living. To think that therapy is only a matter of talking things through (over-and-over) is to misunderstand therapy almost completely.
I think he's seeking some space.....
I have no idea how immature he is. I’d suggest you not discuss him with “everyone”, which I know, is not only immature, it doesn’t do much for love. Also, keep in mind that our strongest attractions are toward those of equal emotional maturity.
Of course he resists being called names – do you know anyone who welcomes being the victim of such behavior? Try to focus on your behavior, and not on his. It seems you want to pick on him, fix him, change him, more than you want to resolve issues. I’d suggest you go on a month long fast of discussing issues.
Resist the urge to equate love with time spent talking. It can be as much an act of love to walk for hours in silence.
Ironically, verbal processing (talking things through) can send the very issues you wish to face and resolve into hiding.
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He’s (She’s) divorced! How can I know he’s (she’s) ready to date…..
20 Jul 2010 by Rod Smith / No Comments
How to know it’s “a go” when dating someone who is divorced…
1. His/her divorce has been finalized (that means completed) for more than a year.
2. He/she takes appropriate responsibility for his or her part in the breakdown of the former marriage.
3. He/she wants a healthy spiritual, emotional, and intellectual relationship with a diverse range of people before becoming intimately involved with any one person.
4. He/she is involved in his/her children’s lives and willingly, generously, and punctually pays child support.
It will be a rough ride if red flags are ignored.....
5. He/she places a high priority on rearing his/her own children, while being respectful toward your children and your relationship with them.
6. He/she can conduct meaningful conversations with the former spouse about matters pertaining to the children. That the divorce is REAL is clear – so there are no intimate, or “throw-back” conversations.
7. He/she is very respectful of marriage, sex, the opposite sex, despite the previous breakdown.
8. He/she remains non-anxious by your occasional encounters with his/her former spouse or persons associated with the former marriage.
9. He/she remains non-anxious by your occasional encounters with your former spouse or persons associated with your former marriage.
10. He/she has deep regard for the time and patience required to establish new relationships and is willing allow necessary time for intimacy to properly develop. -
Can abuse stop?
13 Jul 2010 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
“Can abusive behavior like controlling behavior, badgering, jealousy about other relationships, monitoring things like a partner’s phone, and physical pushing, shoving behavior and even more violent outbursts stop?”
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Yes – but often not within the same entanglement. With close counsel and strong third party monitoring (at least for a period of time) the perpetrator can gain insight, grow, and self-monitor his or her use of unhelpful and destructive interpersonal behaviors. While it is NEVER the victim’s responsibility (no one is sufficiently powerful to make another abusive) a lot can hinge on the degree of “fed-up-ness” within the victim.
Abuse (all categories) continues and intensifies when the victim covers for the perpetrator, “rewrites” the behavior, excuses it, or when the victim feels he or she deserves to be poorly treated.
Most perpetrators will back off (at least temporarily) when met with a sound and early refusal to allow an abusive repertoire within the relationship’s behavior cycle.
It is never the victim who causes the abusive behavior, but the victim must immediately remove him or herself from the abuse (which is seldom easy because people are attracted to persons who are similarly relationally mature or immature) or the behavior will intensify.
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Beware of “nice” – it isn’t always….
19 May 2010 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
When dealing with difficult situations or difficult people…..
1. Your responses are more important than the difficulties or the problems presented. You can choose to escalate (step up) the anxiety or embrace and reduce it (step down). The latter is usually infinitely more productive, although at times, purposefully escalating issues can bring necessary change. It takes wisdom to know the difference.
2. Knee-jerk, reactive behavior will usually hurt you, while planned, creative, and honest responses will facilitate resolution and healing – if resolution and healing are even possible.
3. Not all conflicts can be resolved, nor can all painful or destructive circumstances be healed – but it is possible to allow everything we face to become a transformational crucible, a context that stimulates growth, provokes change, and transforms our character. “What can this teach me?” is a more useful response than, “How can I win?”, “How can I be vindicated?” or “How can I get out of this?”.
4. It is helpful to acknowledge that some people are so toxic, destructive, bitter, or disillusioned that resolution is impossible – and it is better to sever the relationship than it is to play with their fire. By the way, they are often the “nicest” people. Beware of nice! Be even more aware of “religious and nice.” It is often a calculated front. (“Buite blink; binne stink!” This is an Afrikaans idiom: “Outside sparkles; inside stinks.”)
5. As a general rule grace and flexibility will triumph over resentment and rigidity, forgiveness is always more powerful and liberating than harboring resentments.
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Verbal log-jam
When I was a boy I’d endlessly practice the fluent delivery of my name but it seldom flowed easily from my lips. As if it was new news to me, adults pointed out my stutter. Perhaps they thought I was beginning, at that precise moment, for the first time in my life to spit from the mouth, twist at the neck, jig my head back and forth trying to expel some inane statement log-jammed between my gut and my throat.
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Life in our beloved 122
If the inside of a house (outside, too, I suppose) is a metaphor of the lives of the people who live in it – which is something I once read somewhere – gosh, are we in trouble. Our house is a mess.
I consistently clean it room by room, thinking often of the legend that the Golden Gate Bridge that says there’s some guy constantly painting it. I feel for him. While I am sure the view is wonderful I must believe that the poor guy whose doing it daily from one end to the other must find the wind and the weather quite a challenge.
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Being a white South African can come with complications
Being a white South African reared under Apartheid is no simple matter. It permeated everything for me. While I do not pretend to have been a political activist, I was always cognizant that my privileges, simply a result of being born white, were unmerited, and most unfair especially when enjoyed at the expense of others who were not. I think this unsettling truth (for I took advantage of my station in life) was somewhat of a companion to me from the age of about six or seven.
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Location, location – remembering winter in August
We live very close to our school and church, so close we can hear the school bell from our kitchen and the church bells in my bedroom.
Sometimes we walk to both and we don’t see the car for days.
I like it. I like not having to get in and out of the car. I like not having to negotiate traffic, something as synonymous with life in the USA as Disney, Fast Food, and the Fourth of July.
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Ready to adopt?
If you wait until you are ready to adopt a child you never will because you will never be ready. The baby, and only the baby, will make you ready. Reading the right books will be helpful, but “ready” magically comes upon you when a real baby is sleeping in your arms or crying in the middle of the night. If you are not ready to change diapers – and I always am amused at the big deal about this non-issue – being unprepared will last only as long as a clean diaper.
Life inside the Smith household
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